Trump envoy rebukes Greenland leader for rejecting hospital ship proposal
Greenland's rejection of President Donald Trump sending a U.S. military hospital ship has touched off a private-public healthcare debate amid ongoing diplomatic talks about Arctic security.
Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen on Sunday turned down Trump's offer, and now Trump's special envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, has weighed in.
"Shame on Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen!" Landry wrote in response to a Fox News report on Nielsen's objection. "President Donald J. Trump and America care. After speaking to many Greenlanders about the day to day problems they face, one issue stood out — healthcare."
Greenland has sought more self-governance from Denmark under the Self Government Act in 2009 to take more local authority under home rule, but Danish officials' instant rejection of Trump's offer is aligned with Greenland's own rejection that came later Sunday.
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"President Trump's idea of sending an American hospital ship here to Greenland has been noted," Nielsen wrote in a translated Facebook post. "But we have a public healthcare system where treatment is free for citizens.
"It is a deliberate choice."
Greenland remains open to dialogue and cooperation with the U.S., with a caveat, according to Nielsen.
"But talk to us instead of just making more or less random outbursts on social media," Nielsen said in his own public Facebook protestation.
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Greenland's "free for citizens" care is not sufficient, Landry argued in his Facebook response posted to his campaign's page.
"Many villages and small towns lack basic services that Americans often take for granted," Landry's post continued. "Small settlements are without permanent doctors, diagnostic tools, or specialist care – forcing residents to travel great distances for vital treatments that should be available at home."
The healthcare issue underlies the overreaching Trump hopes to annex Greenland to secure the strategic Arctic region from Russian and Chinese designs, calling it a vital issue for "national security" for both the U.S. and the NATO alliance.
"A healthy Greenland is vital for America's national security," Landry's post concluded. "America is committed to defending Greenland, and that begins by ensuring its people are defended against basic illnesses and ailments.
"These missions matter because health is inseparable from security. America's commitment to defending Greenland must begin with ensuring its people are healthy."
The recent dust-up came after Denmark's Joint Arctic Command evacuated a crew member who required urgent medical treatment from a U.S. submarine in Greenlandic waters, seven nautical miles outside of Greenland's capital of Nuuk.
"Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there," Trump wrote Saturday night on Truth Social. "It's on the way!!!"
That post sparked objections from both Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Sunday.
"The Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs," Poulsen told Danish broadcaster DR, according to Reuters. "They receive it either in Greenland, or, if they require specialized treatment, they receive it in Denmark.
"So it's not as if there's a need for a special healthcare initiative in Greenland."
Frederiksen spun the Trump offer into a political debate on public healthcare.
"Am happy to live in a country where there is free and equal access to health for all," Frederiksen wrote in a translated post, sharing a Democrat attack point on Trump's Republican Party's struggles to reform what Trump has rebuked as a "failure" of Obamacare. "Where it's not insurances and wealth that determine whether you get proper treatment. You have the same approach in Greenland."
The U.S. Navy has two hospital ships, the Mercy and the Comfort. Both were last docked in Alabama for repairs, according to Reuters.